calmness
calm
C0041800 (käm)These adjectives denote absence of excitement or disturbance: calm acceptance of the inevitable; a peaceful hike through the scenic hills; a soothing, placid temperament; spent a serene, restful weekend at the lake; hoped for a more tranquil life in the country. See Also Synonyms at cool.
Calmness
See Also: PEACEFULNESS
- Calm as a bathtub —George Garrett
- Calm as a Buddhist —Elizabeth Taylor
- Calm as a convent —Anon
- Calm as a cud-chewing cow —Harold Adams
- Calm as a frozen lake when ruthless winds blow fiercely —William Wordsworth
- Calm as a gliding moon —Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Calm as a marble head —Eudora Welty
- (I’m) calm as a Mediterranean sky —Frank Swinnerton
- Calm as a mirror —Alexandre Dumas, pere
- (The sky was) calm as an aquarium —Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- Calm as an iceberg —Gelett Burgess
- Calm as a slumbering babe —Percy Bysshe Shelley
As part of our daily language this has evolved into “Calm as a sleeping baby.”
- (Said it as) calm as a virgin discussing flower arrangement —George MacDonald Fraser
- Calm as beauty —Robert Browning
- Calm as dewdrops —William Wordsworth
- Calm as fate —John Greenleaf Whittier
- Calm as glass —Charlotte Bronte
- Calm as ice —Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Calm as if she were sitting for her portrait —Henry James
- Calm as in the days when all was right —Friedrich von Schiller
- Calm as night —Victor Hugo
- (Voice) calm as the deepest cold —Sharon Sheehe Stark
- Calm as the sky after a day of storm —Voltaire
- Calm as virtue —William Shakespeare
- Calm as water in a glass —standing water in clean cut glass —Reynolds Price
- Calm descended (on the pool hall) as nerve shattering as if the (long barnlike) room were the ship from which Jonah had been cast into the sea —Flannery O’Connor
- Calmed down, like a Corinthian column —John Ashbery
- A calm … like the deep sleep which follows an orgy —Mark Twain
- Cold as cucumbers —Beaumont and Fletcher
In its original meaning this referred to sexual coldness. As currently used it means being calm, collected, or “Cool as a cucumber.” Poet Stevie Smith used the simile as a title for a poem which begins with this and two other cliches to describe the subject of the poem, a girl named Mary: “Cool as a cucumber calm as a mill pond sound as a bell was Mary.” (Ed: The quote from the Smith poem has no commas!)
- Cool and collected as a dean sitting in his deanery —Ogden Nash
- Cool and ordinary as a gallon of buttermilk —Borden Deal
- Cool as a Buddha —Jan Epton Seale
The simile, from a short story about a new mother entitled Reluctant Madonna, reads as follows in full context: “Christie intends to be cool as a Buddha about this baby. Unflappable.”
- Cool as a cop with a clipboard —Gary Gildner
- Cool as a cube of cucumber on ice —Carl Sandburg
This extension of the familiar “Cool as a cucumber” is particularly apt in Sandburg’s epic, The People, Yes, which beautifully and cleverly incorporates many familiar similes.
- Cool as a frozen daiquiri —Linda Barnes
- Cool as an Easter lily —Erich Maria Remarque
- Cool as a quarterback —Dan Wakefield
- (He was) cool as a refrigerator —R.A.J. Walling
- Cool as a veteran horse race jockey —Carl Sandburg
- Cool as lettuce —Jay Parini
- (He’s as) cool as the other side of your pillow —Merlin Olsen, NBC-TV broadcaster, about Ken O’Brien, quarterback for the Jets, January, 1987
- Expression … as calm and collected as that of a doctor by a patient’s bedside —Stefan Zweig
- Felt a certain calm fall over me like a cloak —R. Wright Campbell
- Have kept composure, like captives who would not talk under torture —Richard Wilbur
- His calmness was like the sureness of money in the bank —Anzia Yezierska
- Looked as cool as a yellow diamond —Robert Campbell
- Looking calm as an eggshell —Edith Wharton
- (The April morning) mellow as milk —Sharon Sheehe Stark
- Mellow as moonlight —Slogan, Vogan Candy Co.
- Mellow as old brandy —Anon
- Mild as cottage cheese —Stephen Vincent Benet
- Mild as milk —Dame Edith Sitwell
- Nonchalant as a shoplifter in the checkout line —Donald McCaig
- The sea was calm like milk and water —Isak Dinesen
- The sense of rest, of having arrived at the long-promised calm centre, filled him like a species of sleep —John Updike
- Serene as a man who has just got a promotion and raise —Geoffrey Wolff
- Stayed calm, like a hero before the battle when all the cameras are on him —Clancy Sigal
- (Your opinion at the moment) worries me exactly as much as dandruff would a chopped-off head —William Mcllvanney
| Noun | 1. | calmness - steadiness of mind under stress; "he accepted their problems with composure and she with equanimity" |
| 2. | calmness - an absence of strong winds or rain | |
| 3. | calmness - a feeling of calm; an absence of agitation or excitement |